The Sociology of Industry by Richard Brown John Child Dr S R Parker

Author:Richard Brown, John Child, Dr S R Parker [Richard Brown, John Child, Dr S R Parker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781134999361
Google: bP2IAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2005-08-02T04:40:00+00:00

SHOP STEWARDS AND WORKPLACE BARGAINING

Much workplace activity has taken place without there being any official trade union organisation at shopfloor level. The existence of shop steward organisation, however, and the opportunity which this gives for much more ‘formalised’ workplace bargaining, are important and independent influences on collective action in the workplace.

Workshop representatives, now generally but not always known as shop stewards, could be found in some industries in Britain as long ago as the early nineteenth century, though with some exceptions, notably the printing industry, they did not then feature in the official organisation of the union (Goodman and Whittingham, 1973). A powerful shop stewards movement, especially in the engineering industries, developed during the First World War, initially particularly concerned with wartime labour problems such as dilution, but this did not survive the post-war depression with any strength (Pribicevic, 1959; Hinton, 1973). The shop stewards movement was strongly influenced by socialist and syndicalist ideas, advocated radical changes in the ownership and control of industry and was seen as a threat by the official trade union leadership. During and especially since the Second World War shop stewards have increasingly played a significant part in industrial relations in a whole variety of industries and the importance of their role has been widely recognised (Donovan, 1968; McCarthy, 1967).

There are a variety of reasons for the growth in numbers and importance of shop stewards. The need for workshop representation arose partly because collective bargaining on an industry-wide basis left many issues to be determined at workplace level, especially but not only if incentive payment systems were in use; and partly because in many trade unions branches were based on residence not workplace so that some additional organisation was needed if members were to be recruited and represented, membership maintained and subscriptions collected at the place of work, tasks which neither full-time nor branch officials could easily carry out. The opportunity was provided by full employment and the increasing size and more widespread acceptance of trade unions, which greatly strengthened the power of the worker vis-à-vis the employer. Further pressures for some form of workshop representation probably came from the need for a means of control and influence for the ordinary worker faced with increasingly large and bureaucratic employers and trade unions, and from the changing aspira tions of workers, demanding more say as to their conditions of work and employment.

The power of shop stewards derives primarily from their position as representatives of their members, though their position as representatives of the union as a whole, now generally recognised in union rule-books and elsewhere, is also important. In situations where management cannot rely on coercion but must secure to some extent at least the willing co-operation of their employees such representatives must be listened to and negotiated with. Indeed many managements welcome, or at least tolerate, shop stewards, because it is more effective for them to deal with an organised work force than an unorganised one, which cannot easily be influenced and whose reactions can be much less predictable.

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